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...when You Collaborate With Someone Else On Something Creative, You Get To Places That You Would Never Get To On Your Own. The Way An Idea Builds As It Careens Back And Forth Between Good Writers Is So Unpredictable. Sometimes It Depends On People Misunderstanding Each Other, And That's Why I Don't Think There's Any Such Thing As A Mistake In The Creative Process. You Never Know Where It Might Lead.

-John Cleese

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...when You Collaborate With

John Cleese

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...when You Collaborate With Someone Else On Something Creative, You Get To Places That You Would Never Get To On Your Own. The Way An Idea Builds As It Careens Back And Forth Between Good Writers Is So Unpredictable. Sometimes It Depends On People Misunderstanding Each Other, And That's Why I Don't Think There's Any Such Thing As A Mistake In The Creative Process. You Never Know Where It Might Lead.

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Muslims, Who Have A Completely Different Value System, Come To The West, Then They Should Accept That There Are Certain Basic Values In The West Intrinsic To Our Culture. Just As I Wouldn't Suggest That Any Westerner Walk Down The Streets Of Saudi Arabia In A Bikini.

Why Write About The Past? Well, There's More Of It.

The British Fans Are Liable To Suddenly Be Talking To You About Something That You Don't Know How You Got Into The Conversation. I Think It's Something To Do With The Fact That They've Been Watching You For So Many Years Sort Of You Telling Your Story.

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You Don't Have To Be The Dalai Lama To Tell People That Life's About Change.

What I've Always Wanted To Do Is Be As Funny As Possible.

I Can't Tell You How Scary It Can Be Walking Onto A Movie And Suddenly Joining This Family - It's Like Going To Somebody Else's Christmas Dinner; Everyone Knows Everyone And You're Not Quite Sure What You're Supposed To Sit.

You Can't Make Christ Funny. He's Self-aware, He's Too Flexible Within The Situation. It's Rigidity, It's When The Ego Takes Over And The Behavior Becomes Inappropriate That It Becomes Funny.

I've Always Called Myself A Writer/performer, Not An Actor Because I Basically Write What I Perform.

It's Easier To Be Creative If You've Got Other People To Play With.

High Creativity Is Responding To Situations Without Critical Thought.

Most Of The Bad Taste I've Been Accused Of Has Been Generic Bad Taste; It's Been Making Fun Of An Idea As Opposed To A Person.

While You're Being Creative, Nothing Is Wrong. There's No Such Thing As A Mistake, And Any Drivel May Lead To The Breakthrough.

When You Do Comedy In Front Of An Audience, They Are The Ones Who Tell You Whether It's Funny Or Not And Which Bits Are Funny And Which Bits Need To Be Fixed.

Manuel Will Show You To Your Rooms - If You're Lucky.

Nothing Will Stop You Being Creative More Effectively As The Fear Of Making A Mistake.

When We Hold A World Championship For A Particular Sport, We Invite Teams From Other Countries To Play As Well.

I Can Certainly See That You Know Your Wine. Most Of The Guests Who Stay Here Wouldn't Know The Difference Between Bordeaux And Claret.

Either People Walk Round Dressed As Chickens Or They Listen To Beethoven.

By Watching The Great, Old Comedians I Picked Up A Few Tricks About How To Do Physical Comedy. And Whenever I Could Learn Something, I Sort Of Added That To My Repertoire.

The Main Evolutionary Significance Of Humor Is That It Gets Us From The Closed Mode To The Open Mode Quicker Than Anything Else.

You Can Lead A Horse To Water But You Can't Make Him Enter Regional Distribution Codes In Data Field 97 To Facilitate Regression Analysis On The Back End.

When You're Being Stalked By An Angry Mob With Raspberries, The First Thing To Do Is To Release A Tiger.

My Views Are Heretical To People Who Believe In Political Correctness.

Who's Ever Going To Write A Film In Which I Get The Girl? Me!

I Tend To Have An Odd Split In My Mind: I Tend To Look At It As A Writer And When The Writing Thing Is Ok And I'm Happy With It, Then I Put On My Actor's Hat.

A Wonderful Thing About True Laughter Is That It Just Destroys Any Kind Of System Of Dividing People.

What's The Bleedin' Point?

I Don't Want To Have To Start Being Unselfish Again. The Great Thing About Being On Your Own Is You Do What You Damned Well Like.

When You Get To My Age, And I'm 66 Now, You Realize That The World Is A Madhouse And That Most People Are Operating In Fantasy Anyway. So Once You Realise That, It Doesn't Bother You Much.

It Seems Astounding To Me Now That The Video Games Are Perhaps As Important As The Movie Themselves. And People Will Spend 2 Or 3 Years Obsessing About The Video Game In Exactly The Same Way That They'd Be Obsessing About The Movie If They Were Working On That.

I Was Always A Sports Nut But I've Lost Interest Now In Whether One Bunch Of Mercenaries In North London Is Going To Beat Another Bunch Of Mercenaries From West London.

I Think There Are So Many Activities Going On, Like Mountaineering. You Know, You Would Pay Good Money Not To Have To Do That, And Yet There Are People Racing Out Who Want To Spend Their Spare Time Clambering Up Rocks.

If You Want To Know Who Your Friends Are, Have A Major Failure.

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Come To Me. I Want To Plow You Like A Calgary Driveway At Christmas.

We Need To Be In The Open Mode When We Are Pondering A Problem, But, Once We Come Up With A Solution, We Must Then Switch To The Closed Mode To Implement It.

When You've Only Got Few Days Of Rehearsal Before You're In The Studio, It's Wonderful To Start Off With People That You Have Good, Friendly, Tolerable Relationships To Start With, For The Simple Reason That You Don't Have To Spend 24 Hours Figuring Out How Sensitive They Are, And Can You Give Them A Line Reading, Or How Do You Have To Give Them Direction.

He Who Laughs Most, Learns Best.

The Open Mode Is A Mood In Which Curiosity For Its Own Sake Can Operate, Because We're Not Under Pressure To Get A Specific Thing Done Properly. We Can Play.

Basil Fawlty Was An Easy Character For Me. For Some Reason, Portraying A Mean, Uptight, Incompetent Bully Comes Naturally To Me.

I Started To Make Harder Jokes Before Anyone Else Did. And The Producers Would Get Anxious. They'd Say, 'that's A Little Bit Hard-edged, Isn't It?' And I'd Say, 'let's Just Try It And See How The Audience Reacts. If They Don't Like It, Let's Cut It Out.' And The Audience Roared With Laughter, So I Learned You Could Do This Harder Humor And People Loved It.

I Don't Miss London Much. I Find It Crowded, Vast And Difficult To Get Around. Cabs Are Incredibly Expensive.

Your Mother Was A Hamster And You Father Smelled Of Elder Berries.

I Think Humor Is Incredibly Positive, I Think It Is Life Advancing. There's Medical Research To Show That It Improves Your Antibodies. It's All About Sense And Perspective.

I Think It Takes A Long Time, As You Get Older, To Realize Just How Crazy The World Is, Just How Ridiculous It All Is.

When The Target Audience Is American Teenage Kids, You Can Have Problems. My Generation Prized Really Fine Acting And Writing. Sometimes You Have To Go Back To The Basic Principles Which Underpin Great Visual Comedy.

What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?

Rhetorical Question

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Sense Of Humor Is So Much More Subjective Than Anyone Believes.

The Sad Thing About True Stupidity Is That You Can Do Absolutely Nothing About It.

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Other People, You Know, Put A Latex Rubber On, You Know, To Become Sexually Excited. There's So Much I Don't Understand.

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I Just Think That Sometimes We Hang Onto People Or Relationships Long After They've Ceased To Be Of Any Use To Either Of You. I'm Always Meeting New People, And My List Of Friends Seems To Change Quite A Bit.

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If Life Were Fair, Dan Quayle Would Be Making A Living Asking 'do You Want Fries With That?'

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All Right, But Apart From The Sanitation, Medicine, Education, Wine, Public Order, Irrigation, Roads, The Fresh Water System And Public Health, What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?

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My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels.

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A Man Will Give Up Almost Anything Except His Suffering.

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If I Can Get You To Laugh With Me, You Like Me Better, Which Makes You More Open To My Ideas. And If I Can Persuade You To Laugh At The Particular Point I Make, By Laughing At It You Acknowledge Its Truth.

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Wine Is Wonderful Stuff. But So Many People Are Put Off By The Snobbery Of It.

I'm Very Odd 'cause I Think There's More Than Just A Materialist Planet, A Materialist, Reductionist Planet.

When People Quote Sketches To Me, Half The Time I Don't Know What They're Talking About So I Have To Sort Of Go, Aha, Yes, Oh Yep, I Remember That And Lie My Way Out Of It.

It's Too Difficult To Start Right From Scratch And Try And Be Funny Out Of The Blue.

Too Many People Confuse Being Serious With Being Solemn.

I Have A Tendency Sometimes To Get Too Logical With What I'm Writing, Just Because I Want It To Be Kind Of Perfect.

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I Would Like To Do My Own Eulogy, And Then Shoot Myself And Then Get In The Coffin.

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For Me, The Great Problem Growing Up In England Was That I Had A Very Narrow Concept Of What God Can Be, And It Was Damn Close To An Old Man With A Beard.

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I'm Not Sure What's Going On In Britain. I Don't Know What's Going On In London. Because London Is No Longer An English City, And That's How They Got The Olympics. I Mean, They Said, "we're The Most Cosmopolitan City On Earth," But It Doesn't Feel English.

I Don't Understand Why Very, Very Rich People Want To Have Even More Money Than They've Already Got.

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That's A Lovely Experience When You Make An Audience Laugh. Then The Nerves Go Away For A Bit. And Sometimes You Do Things Then That You've Never Done Before That Are Really Funny.

I Could Take An Umbrella And Balance It On My Chin Or On My Foot. And I Just Got Interested In That Kind Of Thing. And As I Played Games More And More And Got Stronger Physically, I Just Became More Coordinated.

I Have Several Times Made A Poor Choice By Avoiding A Necessary Confrontation.

I've Always Found Life Quite Difficult To Explain To People Or To Myself.

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Nerves Are Always A Big Problem For Me, Which Is Why I Loved Doing American Sitcoms. Because You Know When You Do The Take In Front Of The Audience That You're Going To Do It Again Afterwards. A Minute After You Finish, You Just Go And Do It Again. So, There's That Sort Of Safety Net. And Then If You Made A Little Mistake Or Two, They'll Go Pick It Up, So There's Nothing To Worry About.

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I Used To Desire Many, Many Things, But Now I Have Just One Desire, And That's To Get Rid Of All My Other Desires.

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I Can Do Anything I Want, I'm Eccentric!

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Everything In Comedy's Got To Be Exactly Right, Which Is Why Making A Comedic Film Is Kind Of A Difficult Process, Because, For Most Of The Two Years Of Shooting It And Editing It And Reshooting And All Of That, It's Not Quite Right. And It's Only When You Just At The End, You Put The Final Polish On It, It Becomes Really Funny Again.

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The Thrill I Got Discovering Buster Keaton When I Was Growing Up Was So Exciting. He Was One Of The Greats.

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We All Die At The End, But Does That Nullify Everything? Would Most People Rather Say, "i Wish I Hadn't Been Born?" Once You're Born You'll Have To Die, Now Is That Funny Or Sad?

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Always Start Where The Energy Is.

What Is Absurd Is Not The Teachings Of The Founders Of Religion, It's What Followers Subsequently Make Of It.

The Americans Are So Much More Positive. They Are Much More In Love With Success. In Britain, They're A Fairly Envious Bunch, And They Love It If You Fail.

Give Your Mind As Long As Possible To Come Up With Something Original.

Although I Had Good Hand-eye Coordination, I Was So Tall And Skinny And Muscularly Weak That I Just Was Not Well Coordinated. But What I Started To Do Quite Early On Was Watch Some Of The Great Old Silent Comedians, Like Laurel And Hardy And Chaplin, And Then Later On Harold Lloyd And Buster Keaton.

Tension Is Wonderful For Making People Laugh.

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It's A Plastic Surgeon You Need, Not A Doctor

I'm Always Meeting New People, And My List Of Friends Seems To Change Quite A Bit.

Comedy Always Works Best When It Is Mean-spirited.

For Those Wondering How To Deal With Anxiety And Depression, The First Thing To Consider Is What You're Putting Into Your Mouth.

The English Contribution To World Cuisine: The Chip.

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When You've Been Doing Comedy For Forty Years, You Really Do Know Most Of The Jokes. And Even If You Don't Know A Specific Joke, You Can Pretty Much Guess What It's Going To Be.

How To Defend Yourself Against A Banana

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